*
I open my eyes to a scene that could not possibly exist in the real world. The land beneath me is in turmoil, changing form and structure without a moment's notice. Seas of magma flow beneath my feet, unbidden, before icing over and forming mile-high spires of frost. The ice melts, creating a torrent of half-frozen sludge. The water evaporates, leaving behind an endless expanse of sand and rock.
The scene resets, as the sand begins to liquefy, becoming the molten sea that it came from. Again and again, the scene repeats. Fire. Ice. Water. Rock. The elemental play has no beginning and no end. What came first? I no longer know…
Suddenly, a bright light fills the sky, petrifying the land. The light shrinks, forming a sphere of fire that sears the land. In that instant, chaos becomes order. The magma flows into the earth, the ice melts to create oceans, the sand hardens to form mountains.
The planet revels in its newfound stability, as life begins to take root. Grass sweeps across the barren plains, flowers bloom in explosions of colour, trees erupt from the newly nourished earth. Paradise lies before me, a blue and green marble of life spinning quietly in the eternal darkness. But it will not last. I know how this story goes.
Centuries pass in the blink of an eye. Time here has little in common with its reality-bound cousin. When I open my eyes again, paradise has become pandemonium. Factories belch out death and despair, fires ravage the land, and black smoke hangs low over the broken fields.
The suffering is almost palpable, as the last of the greenery is devoured by man. To do this to that paradise is surely a sin, but no judgement comes to the perpetrators. They have already fled to their coffins of metal and ice, escaping the chaos that they have created. I am left in an endless expanse of sand and rock, an eerie reminder of what once was.
More time passes, and a new speck of light to the south garners my attention. It moves through the air in an erratic pattern. Fluctuating in intensity and size as it pinwheels through the sky. Suddenly, it angles down and collides with an ill-placed sand dune, shattering into dozens of fragments which are thrown further afield, slaves to their own momentum. In that instant, I realize what I am seeing.
What remains of the Saving Grace passes by me in a flaming blur, before finally coming to an explosive rest on the sand ahead. A few feet away from the chaos, a white haired figure lies face down in the sand, a spreading pool of red spreading from her abdomen.
Out of nowhere, a cloud forms around the flaming wreckage, raining down liquid life. I descend through the wispy strata, drawing nearer to the dying woman. As I approach, another figure materializes into the scene, arriving in a flurry of cooling rain. Despite this, not a single drop clings to her feminine physique. She is clothed in a cloak of deepest blue, and her dark hair flows freely in the new breeze. She kneels beside the blood soaked girl, searching for signs of life.
Suddenly, the rain-made woman stops, peering at the figure's abdomen. I move closer, and see the thing that made her pause: a lance of shrapnel has pierced the woman’s stomach, drawing forth a great deal of blood.
No.
The metal pierced my body. She is me. I am her. Is this a dream of death? Am I still lying on that cold sand, slowly bleeding out while my mind entertains itself with fanciful visions of vultures and a woman who makes miracles seem commonplace?
The woman suddenly speaks, saying, “You escape a hypercane, an exploding city and a burning plane only to end up dying due to some scrap metal? This world truly does not love you, Daughter of None. You are an abnormality, but that does not mean that you deserve such a fate. Although I’m breaking the rules by doing this, your existence is simply too important for you to be lost like this. Once you have fulfilled your duty, then, and only then, do I permit you to die…”
The woman lying in the sand, the Alza of the past, gave no answer to the woman’s ominous statement. The woman, still kneeling beside… me… lays her hands on the piece of metal which will kill me if left unattended. Turning her head, she speaks once more, although this time feels as though she is having a conversation with someone that only she can see.
“How is the boy?” she asks the quiet night.
A moment later, she begins nodding her head, emanating agreement with the invisible stranger. “Are you sure? It might be impossible for him to make the journey in that state.”
Again, a silent reply.
“The elder and the machine are not here. It is vexing, but we should monitor them as well. They may yet prove themselves important enough to warrant saving.”
With her hands still on the shrapnel, the woman closes her eyes and mutters something under her breath. At the same time, tendrils of ice begin snaking their way down her arms, before wrapping around the metal, binding it in frost. Once it has been fully encased, she skilfully removes it from my- from the unconscious girl’s stomach. She then holds the entombed metal aloft and shatters it in a move that is too fast for my eyes to follow.
Returning to my side, the ice maker presses her hand against my ghost’s wound, creating a dark red liquid from the moisture in the air and guiding it inside my body. Once she has finished, she removes her hand, revealing smooth skin that bears no trace of the fatal injury it had borne mere seconds ago.
“Well, at least you won’t die from blood loss.”
Standing, the woman who had saved my life turns to leave, but something in the sand nearby makes her pause.
Something has stained the ground a dark blue hue that looks strangely familiar. Reaching down, the woman picks up a broken vial, now dripping the life-saving medicine uselessly onto the sand below. Kingston’s medicine, for which they had crossed mountains and braved a dying city, was gone, swallowed up by the earth.
“And after they went through so much… Well, I guess one more thing should be fine.” the woman mutters, placing her hand in the centre of the blue-black stain. An instant later, the medicine begins to recede from its earthly prison and flow upwards, forming into an azure sphere hovering delicately above the woman’s palm. With a flick of her hand, it divides into twelve streams which flow back towards their vials, which have already been remade. With the medicine returned to its proper place, the woman places the twelve vials beside my sleeping figure.
The woman, her task seemingly accomplished, leaves the scene at a gentle pace. With every step, wisps of steam rise from her skin, her body evaporating into the night…
Awakening Page 75